Lauren Boebert among 40 Republicans who got millions from spending bill they voted against

The House on Wednesday approved $459 billion in new government spending, a crucial step toward funding federal agencies for the next six months and preventing a partial shutdown this weekend.

The legislation passed by a 339-to-85 vote and heads to the Senate, which must pass it by midnight Saturday to keep crucial agencies from shuttering when funding lapses. The bill, which was drafted by bipartisan leaders in both chambers, is not expected to face substantial opposition.

But a larger and trickier shutdown deadline lurks just over two weeks from now, on March 22, and lawmakers remain fiercely divided over how to fund those agencies and which policies to attach to that legislation.

Still, Congress is on a realistic path to finally conclude the fiscal 2024 appropriations process after extending the deadline four times over disagreements within a fractious House Republican conference that led to the historic ousting of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

“Passing these bills will give us much-needed momentum to finish the next package of spending bills by the March 22 deadline,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the chamber’s floor Wednesday. “But as I’ve said repeatedly, it will take bipartisan cooperation to finish the job.”

Far-right Republicans in the House had sought to use the appropriations process to significantly curtail spending by prohibiting funding for Planned Parenthood, slash resources for the Education Department, enact rigid new immigration restrictions and claw back some of the money for the White House’s climate agenda.

Among the 83 House Republicans who voted to halt a nearly $460 billion spending package designed to fund the government and stop an imminent shutdown, 40 of them secured millions of dollars to bankroll pet projects in their states, according to Business Insider.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) nicknamed it "Swamp Ominibusm," called it a "monstrosity" and claimed it earmarked money for the Green New Deal.

But Business Insider reported that, despite her criticizing the spending package, it included more than $20 million that she personally sought out for various interests in her district.

The earmarks Boebert asked for, according to the news outlet, include a $5 million Wolf Creek water reservoir revamp, $2.2 million for water infrastructure in Craig, Colorado and millions of dollars to improve highways.

When approached by Business Insider, Boebert did not comment.

Another member of Congress who tried to block the bill despite having his own projects included in it was Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN). "Everything that we've asked for, I could defend," he told Insider. "I don't think you can defend some of that stuff that's in there. It's just too much."

Like Boebert, Burchett tried to sink the bill which included $12 million he'd asked for that would benefit his own district. The earmarks included $2.3 million for the University of Tennessee Medical Center, $2 million for an affordable housing project in Knoxville, and $2 million for a healthcare engineering center.

Insider reported: "Plenty of Republicans are willing — in the words of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — to "vote no and take the dough."

The story also noted that Democrats Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) and Mark Takano (D-CA) each tried to shoot down the bill over its gun policies, which they said included rollbacks of the background check system.

Some Republicans were unhappy with that $1.7 trillion total and hoped to attach policy provisions to the legislation as a consolation for not cutting spending more. Those “riders” — called that because the policies “ride along” on often-unrelated legislation — included limits on which items some food stamp recipients could purchase, a crackdown on the availability of abortion medication and a ban on regulations on menthol-flavored cigarettes.

Littering appropriations bills with culture-war poison pills — as House Republicans had done in versions of spending legislation last year — would have doomed its chances of passage.

The lack of cohesion among Republicans to pass measures through their two-vote majority has forced Johnson, and McCarthy before him, to suspend the rules of the House to dodge procedural holds thrown up by the Freedom Caucus and rely on Democrats to ensure bills pass with two-thirds support of the House.

Johnson and Republicans say they want to pass border and immigration legislation before sending aid to allies, and some of those policy pushes, lawmakers say, have clouded the government funding picture. Members of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus have repeatedly argued that Congress should not fund agencies that they believe contribute to the influx of migrants at the Mexican border, ease access to abortions, or support LGBTQ and diversity, equity and inclusion measures.

“Republicans will go around and talk about how they scored major wins, how they somehow delivered for the American people. The fact of the matter is we did no such thing,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) said on the House floor. “If any member from the body can come down and explain to the American people in terms they can understand, explain it — what exactly the cuts look like.”

The bill passed by the House on Wednesday funds roughly 30 percent of the federal government — including the Justice, Transportation, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development departments, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration and crucial government research functions — for the rest of fiscal 2024, which ends Sept. 30.

It was the product of two bipartisan compromises in Washington, agreements that have faced substantial scrutiny and threats from far-right legislators.